


Diptych in Amber II

by osprey_archer



Series: Diptych in Amber [2]
Category: Blood Feud - Rosemary Sutcliff
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-01
Updated: 2013-04-01
Packaged: 2017-12-07 03:46:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/743829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/osprey_archer/pseuds/osprey_archer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Why do you come back here,” she asked, “when you have all of Alexandria before you, and any sea you please?”</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>Anders drew back from her a little. “I cannot go home with the blood feud undone,” he said, low-voiced. “And I cannot finish the feud; and so - ”</i>
</p>
<p>Anders and Alexia talk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Diptych in Amber II

“I think,” said Anders, “that you don’t like me very much.”

His voice broke the long silence that had descended on them as they sat in the lowering afternoon sun, Alexia working her embroidery with the new amber beads that Anders had brought her from his latest voyage - his apology, perhaps, for his strange tie with Jestyn. Anders sat across from her, listless in the summer heat, stroking Maia’s head: for the gazelle, like Jestyn, was fond of Anders. 

And Alexia, just as Anders said, was not, although she did not know why. He had tried to kill Jestyn; but Jestyn had forgiven it, and Anders gave no sign that he wanted to try again, so why should she care? Jestyn loved him; but Jestyn loved her more, and she was content in that. Whatever there was in the strange tangled bond between the two, there was in it little baring of hearts. 

“Jestyn loves you,” Anders said, as if she might not know it. 

It annoyed her. She jerked her embroidery thread. “It pleases Jestyn to have you here,” she replied, and lowered her head over her embroidery. Her hair stuck to her sweaty neck. “He would like it,” she added, the more annoyed at her own honesty, “if you would stay.” 

Anders started as if she had stabbed him with her needle. “I cannot,” Anders said.

“Very well.”

“And I don’t want to stay here,” he said, voice anger-rough. She looked up in surprise. “What would I do? And Jestyn would not want it.”

“Did I not just say he did?” Alexia said. Anders tossed his head, like a horse bothered by a fly, and she said, “Well, you ask him, then, and you will see I am right.”

“I cannot!” 

Another silence. Dust drifted golden through the sun. Alexia lifted an amber bead to the sunlight, turning it to catch the glints of gold. “It is very pretty,” she told him, in the way of an apology for pressing him. “Did you go to the Baltic?”

“No; we traded for the beads in Alexandria.” 

“Alexandria.” The library was gone, she knew, and the great lighthouse that had been a wonder of the world: it was better, perhaps, that she would never see the city, and could always keep her vision of what it once had been undimmed in her mind. She stabbed her needle through her silk, and pricked her finger, and hissed. 

“Why do you come back here,” she asked, “when you have all of Alexandria before you, and any sea you please?”

Anders drew back from her a little. “I cannot go home with the blood feud undone,” he said, low-voiced. “And I cannot finish the feud; and so - ”

And so he had nowhere else to go. 

There seemed to be a pleading look in his odd-colored eyes, and it came to her with sudden clarity that he had hoped she envied him: that it would have meant there was something between him and Jestyn worth envying. 

“It is not nothing,” he said: and she saw that with feud gone, home gone, brother gone, his strange bond with Jestyn was all he had left, and that was little enough. 

She was sorry, suddenly, that she did not like him more. But she could not say that to Anders. So she said instead another thing: “I worry Jestyn will go away with you.”

Anders shook his head. “Jestyn loves you,” he said again. “And you only.”

He had said that before: _Jestyn loves you_. “I think he is more fond of you than you know,” she said gently. 

Anders snorted. “He misses Thormod.” And he hurried on, as if he feared to speak more of Thormod: “And I think you are wrong about Jestyn. The sea and all the riches in Egypt could not call him from this house, his warm hearthfire and home acre: he has built his own place in life, and why would he leave it for the uncertainties of the sea?” 

“For adventure?” she said. Adventure: like Odysseus, traveling home from Troy. 

And she would wait, faithful as Penelope, at her everlasting embroidery. 

“Adventure! I think he has had enough of it,” Anders replied, a strange longing bitterness in his voice. “No; I cannot think he will leave. But you ask him, then,” he said, quoting her with a half-mocking smile, “and see if I am right.”

“What good would it do? - it is the sort of worry that only time can soothe.” She thrust her needle into her embroidery again. Amber from the Baltic, silks from Samarkand,: the whole world in her hands. Jestyn had seen the Baltic: he could see Samarkand, if he wanted. 

For once the swift flash of her needle did not soothe her, and at last she drew a knot, and continued, voice low and fast. “It is that - you come back with the smell of the sea on you - with linen from Egypt and amber from the Baltic, wine from Cordoba and gold from Tripoli; and how can Jestyn see that, and rest content in this little house on a little street when he could have all the world? It is not _you_ , but the thoughts you bring, the air of adventure, all the places that I will never - ”

She caught herself, thrusting her embroidery onto the table and moving to stand at the fretted window. She felt Anders’ eyes on her, surprised, and was surprised herself. She thought she had put these feelings away with childish things.

“I am sorry,” Anders said. 

“Don’t be.” Alexia turned from the window, smoothing her skirt and her face and returning to her everlasting embroidery. “No one thinks that women can want to do anything but sew.” She looked at him. “You cannot know what anyone wants, unless you ask.”

“Well,” he said. “I will bring you something besides beads, then, next time. A sword, perhaps?”

She smiled, as he meant her to. But she said gravely, “I meant you should speak to Jestyn. I can never go anywhere - but _you_ , at least, might stay, if you ask.” 

He looked away. “But you do not understand,” he said quietly. “It does not matter - even if Jestyn wants - I cannot stay.” 

“Why not?” 

He looked at the sunlight across the tiled floor. “I cannot,” he repeated, as if it were an answer. 

“So you cannot now,” she said. “But do you ask him; for someday, perhaps you can.”


End file.
